The Romanian Science Fiction Society (more precisely, Antuza Genescu, with special thanks to Cristian Tamas) translates my SFnovelists article “Traduttore, traditore: translations, languages and cultures” (the original’s here, for those of you who don’t speak Romanian).
That’s pretty awesome.
(yes, there’s a part 2, but I’m not 100% sure I can announce this bit of news yet. Soon-ish, hopefully)
I was twelve years of age when I chopped off my hair, dressed as a boy, and set off to save my family from impending ruin.
I made it almost to the end of my front garden.
(excerpt from the opening of A Most Improper Magick)
Outwardly, there is nothing much to separate Kat Stephenson’s family from the rest of Regency England: her father is a vicar, her stepmother an avid social climber who raises her three stepdaughters to be dainty ladies suitable for contracting profitable marriages. However, there is Kat’s mother, whom no one talks about–and not because she shamelessly ran off or flirted with one man too many. No, Kat’s mother was a witch: the kind that can make the teapot pour by itself at a social gathering, or cast love spells to make and break marriages.
Kat’s family is in desperate straits: her feckless brother has ruined them through gambling debts, and their only way of escape is for one of her elder sisters to marry a richer, older man–about whom there are some definitely unsavoury rumors. It’s up to Kat to save the day, with the help of her mother’s spell books and magical mirror.
I got this book on Saturday morning, and finished it by Saturday afternoon. It was a great romp: fast-paced, with some hilarious setpieces and some great character interactions. I loved the portrayal of the three sisters and how they stuck by each other; and Stephanie very nicely and concisely portrays the burden of social mores that were the characteristic of the time period. The storyline zips and turns as Kat keeps landing from one set of troubles into another (I especially loved poor Mr Carlyle, besotted by a stray love spell and who kept following Kat’s sister like a puppy), and the magic makes a nifty addition to an already packed storyline.
Oh, and it’s got highwaymen. Seriously, what more can you ask for?
(well, ok, I know what I can ask for. Book 2. But it looks I get to wait a year for that…)
There’s something I particularly hate about large supermarkets in France (I don’t remember this in the UK, and I’ve never been in a US supermarket for long enough, so I wouldn’t know how common it is): there’s a guy with a microphone speaking over the sound system, detailing the deals for the day and where you can find them (“if you don’t hurry they’ll be gone” and that kind of thing). In between the bouts of publicity, they put music, but not the unobtrusive, relaxing kind–rather the peppy kind of music that makes my teeth grind.
It’s cheap, it’s tacky, and it’s a really unpleasant background to have when you’re shopping.
Well, they’ve installed the same thing in our town centre: it broadcasts over the entire shopping area. It’s already quite annoying as it is–but one of the loudspeakers happens to be over the entrance to our building. Net result: we get the sound in the morning, and as a background all day.
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And a last link via zweitpunktnull: Internova, the magazine of international science fiction, relaunches as a webzine.
Here’s a sample of what’s up there, to whet your appetite:
-I blog over at Futurismic on belief in science vs. religion
-GUD issue 6 is out, containing my Chinese reincarnation short story “As the Wheel Turns” (special thanks go to Chris Kastensmidt on this one, for never stopping to believe in it). You can read a sample here, and get more information about the current issue here.
-Maria Zannini interviews me for the Online Writing Workshop. In which I talk about critique partners, and writing rules (and how to break them)
-The full version of Jenny Barber‘s interview of me can be found in the latest issue of Dark Horizons, the British Fantasy Society magazine.
-And, from now until the 14th of September, I’ll be guest-blogging over at Futurismic, along with fellow IZ authors Gareth L. Powell and Lavie Tidhar. Check out today’s post, which is full of geekiness about rice and rice cookers.
On a more personal note, I am utterly swamped, and finding it difficult to get into much of a writing groove at all. Feeling decidedly cranky about this.
(courtesy of a friend. Click for larger versions. Official pictures might be a little longer in coming)
Exit of the church, with our guard of honour
Close-up on BF and me with our respective parents by our sides
And on the beach, ‘cos it’s a holiday…
And this is where we went for our pre-honeymoon. Three days of relaxing bliss. Real honeymoon in October, destination unknown. Well, to me. I sure hope the H knows 
.
Many many thanks to everyone who came to be with us on this special day; and to those who sent their encouragements and good wishes!
Up to midpoint of season 2. Still a bunch of consistency issues, the worse ones being the ones around breath–if your vampire has no need to breathe to exist, and no way to exercise their lungs, they shouldn’t be able to gasp out; or, when held dangling by way of another vampire’s hand wrapped around their neck, to look as though they’re being strangled. [1]
And Gunn… OK, I’m the first for ethnic and class diversity in series, and the show’s record so far was pretty abysmal (all White apart from the occasional skimpy-clad Chinese demonness who doubles as martial arts specialist *sigh*). But really, did the one Black person on the show need to come from the street, have dodgy connections, and spout off “brother” every two lines? Do the words “bad stereotypes ” even register here?
Er…
So this is possibly quite silly, but the H and I need someone who can read Chinese. See, we bought ourselves a nice rice cooker from the local Chinatown. What we hadn’t planned for was that although it came with an English instruction manual, it doesn’t provide an explanation of the different settings in a language either of us speaks. There’s a row of white Chinese characters around the central LCD screen (which is meant to be the cooking modes), and a further set of five settings on the LCD screen itself (which is meant to be the rice type, if we read the instruction manual correctly). I have no idea if they’re traditional or simplified Chinese.
Pictures below after the cut. If anyone can provide us with translations, we’d be pretty grateful (it would avoid our messing up dinner by confusing congee, steam-cooking and standard rice cooking…)
EDIT: we’re pretty reasonably sure the white characters are the following (or some variant): regular, quick, small amount, cake, steam, soup, congee, casserole. We just don’t know which ones correspond to which…
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